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Archive for the 'Science' Category

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The video above is from Smarter Everyday and it explains the counter-intuitive properties of Prince Rupert’s Pearls (aka Prince Rupert’s Drops, Dutch Tears or Devil’s Tears). Better yet, it shows how the glass literally explodes thanks to ultra-high speed video. Over the years, smaller versions of these scientific marvels have been popular pocket tricks for magicians. Today, though, they can be difficult to find.

Enter ebay user MikesMagicUSA. He is currently offering a vintage package of a dozen Pearls that are about two inches in length that were marketed by Venture III back in the early 1980s. The Buy It Now price is only $19.99 with free standard shipping. The listing is supposed to run until May 11, but there is a good chance that they will be snapped up before the scheduled end. You can bid here.

The Atlantic recently took a look at, or rather listen to, auditory illusions. It is easy to forget sometimes that sight is not our only sense that can be fooled, but hearing and even touch can be fooled. This recent article discusses the use of mirrors to scratch one arm to relieve an itch on the other discuess one example of touch based illusion, which may have been inspired by the Rubber Hand Illusion. In that touch illusion researchers were able to convince people that a rubber hand was actually their own (learn more about it here).

One of the interesting things in The Atlantic’s article on auditory illusions is that several of the ear-foolers mentioned have similar sight based illusions. Running above is one of the examples listed on The Atlantic’s website, the Shephard Tone which is the auditory equivalent of the Penrose stairs, seen in the background.

The Daily Mail’s website highlighted the work of optical illusionist Brusspup, who posts his videos on YouTube. He even provides templates so you can mess with your own cat. You can check out more at the Brusspup YouTube channel.

The American Repertory Theater at Harvard University has announced that it will end its 2013-2014 season with Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by Aaron Posner and Teller. The production will run from May 10 until June 15 and star Broadway veteran Patrick Page.

Magician and juggler Julian Pittman will be performing tomorrow (Wednesday, December 18) at the Destin Middle School in Destin, Florida. Tickets are $5 for the 3:45 show which will raise money for school supplies. Assisting Pittman will be language arts teacher Melody Gill-Pittman, who is also his wife. As some of us at iTricks happen to be married to school teachers, we know how desperately many schools need the most basic of supplies and hope the Pittmans sell out!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the good folks behind the Academy Awards) have enlaced Ricky Jay to host an upcoming presentation on magic and the origin of special effects. Titled “Like Magic,” the presentation will include film and stage illusion designer Michael Weber and effects supervisor Shane Mahan. The combination of film clips and live demonstrations is open to the public and will be held November 20 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. General admission tickets are only $5 and can be purchased at Oscars.org.

Katy Perry let slip to MTV that her new tour stage show will include at least one magic trick. She says she will not be sawn in half, promising to do that later, but instead will “fly.”

Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum is famous for its collection of medical artifacts and oddities, many of which were at one time associated with side shows. (The safe for work Mütter Minute running above focuses on one of their historical pieces instead of pieces of brain or deformities… you’re welcome.) It recently hosted its first sleepover which included a seance conducted by magician Frances Menotti. No word yet on whether they will host another sleepover, but you can learn more about the museum at their website.

ExtremeTech.com recently reported on the father and son team of John and Benjamin Howell who have built a “human scale invisibility cloak” for about $150. If the demo above looks somewhat familiar, though, it is because they nicked their idea from stage illusionists. They freely admit this in their research paper, but maintain that it may have practical applications because of its scalability, which gives the system advantages of more complex systems. From the above video we can conclude one thing the duo did not learn from magicians is how to choose a proper background to completely “pull off” this illusion!

There are few how have become more famous in the modern era for the cups and balls than Penn and Teller. So if PBS was looking to track exactly how anyone fooled any audience with the venerable old routine, it makes sense it was them.

And it would also make sense that the study would ask P&T why they think the trick works. And mostly, they’d be found to be right. Except for one little concept.

In addition, magicians often say that success with illusions depends on how well they can use gazes and faces to manipulate where audiences look, Macknik explained. The researchers tested this idea by hiding Teller’s face on the video clips with a black rectangle, and found doing so apparently did not affect the illusion.

‘We’re showing a discovery that magicians missed because they relied on their intuition, and their intuition was wrong,’ Macknik said.

The full report has yet to be released, but it seems to indicate that social cues might be a very overrated element of magic in general.

Scientific American broke down the hard numbers behind one of magic’s most common requests: think of a card.

So what did they find?

A final interesting result was that the exact wording of the question seemed to influence which cards people chose. When asked to name a card, over half of the people chose one of four cards: the Ace of Spades (25%), or the Queen (14%), Ace (6%), or King (6%) of Hearts. If you’re like most people, you may have chosen one of these cards when asked at the beginning of this article.

Another interesting fact, statistically wise guys who are trying to throw you off will select a mid-value black card. Therefore creating more predictability when they are trying to create chaos.

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